The black bead I got from the Spooky Forest lays on the desk next to the star necklace from the Hedge Maze. Unfortunately, they aren’t alive, so my Clairvoyance can only tell me that they both contain my own vis, because obviously I have been the one handling them.

I’m on my third book discussing dungeons, artifacts, and magic items. The main difference between an artifact and a magic item is that artifacts are spawned by dungeons, while magic items are created by people. As for what they do, I just plain do not have the skills for it yet. I ask Aunt Heather, and again she refuses to tell me. At this point I think she’s just having me on, but fine. I will keep them safe until I can learn Divination for myself.

The sky turns yellow, signalling the shift to summer. After July’s Trade Festival, I head to Grubwick along with Milo and Anise. I get a batch of six-year-old goblins assigned to me to learn [Pottery]. I’ve grown, and I’m now a noticeable bit taller than the young goblins who are now my eager students.

By the time the sky turns orange, several goblins have unlocked Crafting (Pottery) and I’ve gotten some skill levels myself.

Skill acquired: Search (Clay) Your Tending (Teaching) skill has increased to level 2.

I was really hoping I wouldn’t wind up with Search skills for every stupid thing I could possibly look for, but I suppose it works like Crafting being every stupid thing I could possibly make.

Milo and I are out working at the new Skullburn Bridge Outpost when Meadow ambushes us (figuratively). Since we keep dragging her along on our “quests”, it’s time to get dragged along on one of hers.

“There’s a man who is willing to train me in the Art,” Meadow says. “I missed out on getting a related apprentice class, but I can still get a magical adult class.”

“What’s the… Art like?” Milo asks.

“Well, you know how Wizardry is about sigils, and Incantation is about spoken words?” Meadow asks. “The Art is about affecting the world through images. Paintings, sketches, and such.”

“I’ve never seen you painting or sketching,” I say.

Meadow sighs. “Yeah. I don’t really have much talent for it, and I’m kind of afraid that attempting to learn the Art will be pointless.”

“Well, maybe, maybe not,” I say. “You won’t really know until you’ve given it an honest effort, right?”

“Yeah, I suppose. So are you in?”

“Does a devil-goat breathe fire?” I ask.

“Absolutely,” Milo says.

“Where are we going and when do we leave?” Anise asks.

We return to Corwen to make preparations before heading out to meet Meadow’s prospective teacher. I spend a lot of time working on [Aura Sight] while traveling from one place to another through the wilderness with nothing better to do. I would probably be the first to notice if anything is out of the ordinary with the auras in our surroundings. (I still haven’t seen another “animal” with an azure aura like that crow I spotted that one time.)

You have discovered the Wisteria Garden.

Another wrought iron gate sides near the banks of a stream that desperately needs a bridge. We had to approach by a long way around so that we didn’t have to get wet, but I’m definitely pegging this location for a future project before we try to tackle bridging the deadly carp river. Tempest has plenty of bodies of water that could use bridges.

“Is this a dungeon?” Milo wonders.

“Everything’s a dungeon, Milo,” Anise says. “Even our Hearths. Fancy-pants scholars would call it a ‘locus’.”

“Should we make camp outside?” I ask. “I still haven’t managed to start a fire yet.”

“Yeah, let’s get that started,” Meadow says. “This place shouldn’t be dangerous, but we’ve been walking all day and should get some food and rest.”

Anise and Meadow work on pitching the tent, while Milo and I fail at starting a fire. You’d think the dry midsummer grasses would go up like tinder just from a sharp glance or cutting insult, but we’re bad at this.

Milo scowls at the campfire and yells, “Burn!”

The kindling obediently ignites.

“I guess that didn’t help with Survival (Fire Making),” Milo says with a chuckle.

“Do you just say things now and the world obeys?” I ask.

“It’s a bit more complicated than that,” Milo says. “Your Uncle Falcon said if you’re not talking to a specific person who needs to be able to understand you, you should use a language that isn’t a language you speak regularly, but it felt silly yelling in French so I’m yelling in English. Nobody else around here is likely to be speaking that anyway.”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

Come morning, we head in through the gates. The Wisteria Garden is more open than the Hedge Maze and Spooky Grove, with lawns and benches situated amid trellises and gazebos. A large fountain burbles in one section, the flash of colorful fish in the waters inviting anyone that might have brought a fishing rod. We did not bring a fishing rod. We probably should have. Fishing would probably be more entertaining than that stupid card game Milo’s obsessed with.

We come upon a clearing with perfect concentric rings of cobblestone pathways around borders of flowers, stones, and shrubs. Some paths are blocked off, forcing you to carefully navigate through in order to not step on the flowers. Not quite a hedge maze but still permitting quick passage to anyone who has Survival (Don’t Step on the Flowers) or whatever the stupid skill would be.

In the center of this huge ring maze is a… structure? It looks to be a large gazebo or something but it’s made entirely of several wisteria trees growing together symmetrically to form a building. Each tree has a different color of flowers. Indigo, azure, green, and yellow are visible from where I’m standing, so I’m guessing the other side of the “building” has orange, red, dark, and violet flowers.

My pride as an adventurer (or engineer, or just plain nerd) will not let me get through here without at least trying to follow the maze. My party follows behind me in single file, with Meadow offering directions from the vantage point of being the tallest one here. The correct path winds up taking us in a full circle around the gazebo several times, winding back and forth, in and out, but we make it through.

Congratulations! You have completed the Wisteria Garden maze without touching any plants.

Skill acquired: Survival (Careful Step)

Of course there’s a skill for this. At least it wasn’t named what I was afraid of.

Wait. If I just got this skill for successfully navigating this little maze, could anyone? If I make a goblin crew run this maze, will they get the skill and stop falling off of scaffolding quite so much? I’m probably getting Recollection bonuses from it, I suppose, and they’d still need to actually navigate it, but it might not be a terrible idea to take some of them on dungeon runs. There seem to be quite a lot of very safe dungeons around here.

In the center of the structure sits a man in brightly colored but thankfully not paisley clothing, cross-legged and seeming lost in thought until we approach.

Category Person Race Human Gender Male Rank Epic

There’s a host of other concepts floating off of him that I can’t quite identify yet and probably shouldn’t stare, although being four years old does have its advantages for getting away with social missteps. I may have just gotten Survival (Careful Step), but I do not yet have Persuasion (Careful Step). One of these might help with walking on eggshells in a more literal manner than the other. (No, I don’t know if that skill exists.)

“Visitors,” he says, opening his eyes to look at each of us in turn. “I am Valerian. Welcome. What brings you here?”

“Master Valerian,” Meadow says. “I came to ask if you might teach me in the True Art.”

Valerian lets out a heavy sigh and slowly unfolds his legs before climbing to his feet. “And who are these? Your party?” He looks most critically to me and Milo. “How old are you, children?”

“Four and a half,” I say.

“Almost five!” Milo says.

“Four and three quarters?” I say. “Our naming days are at the end of November.”

“You speak in the voices of children, with innocent faces and wide eyes,” Valerian says. “But although these faces are young, this is not the first time your voice has spoken, and your eyes bear far more weight in them than a mere five years would bring. Reincarnators.”

“Yeah,” I say, not bothering to argue with someone that perceptive. “What of it?”

“Reincarnators or no, what are you doing delving dungeons at almost five years old? At the rate you’re going already, you’re not even going to live to adolescence.”

“There’s a lot of dungeons in the area that are perfectly safe for children,” Anise says. “Nobody ever dies in the Hedge Maze or the Spooky Grove!”

“Short-sighted fool of a woman. Do you know nothing of the ways of the land? Do you not realize what happens when a Hero enters an area?”

“…no?”

“You haven’t noticed how heroes are always arriving just in time to solve a problem?” Valerian says. “The land knows where the Heroes are going. It is compelled to make the journey more interesting for them. Misfortune always travels with them. You have brought me a pair of walking disasters.”

Would someplace go with its disaster unsaved because I didn’t get a quest message? I’ll just have to see, I suppose.

“I’m a goblin,” Milo says. “If I don’t earn some Deeds as early as I can, I would be dying young regardless.”

“And what are you, really?” Valerian asks. “A Hero truly born to goblinkind? A Villain seeking redemption, or merely playing the long game?”

“I’m not a villain,” Milo says. “I seek only prosperity for everyone. Under my benevolent corporate rule. If everyone is wealthy, everyone can afford what I’m selling them.”

“They sent a different sort of villain this time,” I say lightly.

“If even you believe he is a Villain, then why do you not stop him before he rises to power?” Valerian asks.

“Because I don’t actually care,” I say. “People are more complicated than Heroes and Villains, and our cores seem to have decided to do something weird with us and give us no quests just to see what we do.”

Meadow sighs. “You know, we actually came here for me. Not getting fixated on the reincarnators, no matter how weird they are. They’re my friends. I don’t believe Drake is a Hero and I don’t believe Milo is a Villain. Those are not the paths they’ve chosen.”

Valerian shakes his head. “Very well. Do you believe yourself ready for the trials of the True Art? Do you believe you truly comprehend what learning this skill will entail?”

“I thought it would be like, painting and drawing?” Meadow asks.

“You know nothing,” Valerian says. “Come. Let me show you.”

He picks up a gnarled staff from where it had been laying on the ground.

“The True Art is resonating with an image in your heart,” Valerian says. “We work with shapes, light, and color where an Incantor relies on words.”

Drawing with the staff in dirt, Valerian makes two vertical lines with several horizontal lines reminiscent of a ladder. When he sends a pulse of vis into the crude image, the structure suddenly shifts around us. A ladder of branches forms, leading up to another floor.

“The reincarnators may go play in the garden,” Valerian says. “There are many secrets here I am certain that a bored reincarnator could dredge up. Now, let us speak, just the two of us.”

He climbs the ladder, and once Meadow follows him, the branches making up the ladder revert to being less ladder-like. I guess he really doesn’t want to talk to us.